Religiousness and Diseases in Europe: Findings from SHARE

Recent research in religiousness and health suggests that epidemiological forces can have opposed effects. Here we examine two forms of religiousness and their association with disease. We performed a cross-sectional study of 23,864 people aged 50+ included in wave 1 (2004-2005) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and a longitudinal study including people from wave 1, who were followed up during 11 years. Results suggested that taking part in a religious organization was associated with lower odds of heart attack (OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.60, 0.90), stroke (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.50, 0.95), and diabetes (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.58, 0.90) and longitudinally associated with lower odds of cancer (OR 0.78, 95% CI 0.60, 1.00). Conversely, praying was longitudinally associated with higher odds of heart attack (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.10, 1.48) and high cholesterol (OR 1.12, 95% CI 1.00, 1.26). The most religious people had lower odds of stroke, diabetes, and cancer than other respondents, and in the longitudinal model, people who only prayed had higher odds of heart attack than non-religious people. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis that restful religiousness (praying, taking part in a religious organization, and being religiously educated) was associated with lower odds of some diseases, whereas little evidence was present that crisis religiousness (praying only) was associated with higher odds of disease.